Chapter 182: Prelude to Xisha

At that time, the fever for archaeology and grave robbing was rising, and a large number of foreign expeditions came to Asia, hoping to get a piece of the pie in this second great archaeological discovery.

At that time, China's marine archaeology was almost nonexistent. Seeing large numbers of national treasures being salvaged and stolen, how could the Chinese archaeological community not be anxious? Several elderly professors jointly wrote to the central government, requesting that measures be taken. Later, due to the pressure of the situation, with no money and no people, they finally cobbled together a few "investigation teams." One of them was sent to Xisha—that was the one Wenjin was in charge of.

What Third Uncle never expected happened about a month before the archaeological team set out.

At that time, Third Uncle was helping Wenjin prepare some makeshift equipment, things like water pumps and diving gear—none of which the higher-ups would provide for, so Third Uncle was handling it all. One day at noon, while Third Uncle was busy debugging the equipment, a student suddenly came in and said someone outside was looking for him.

Third Uncle found it strange—not many people knew he'd been holed up here recently. Who could it be? He went out to see the man and couldn't help being startled.

The visitor's surname was Xie, named Xie Lianhuan, probably taken from the line "Grievance has no support. Alas, the lover is cut off, the news is distant. Even a clever hand can untie the linked ring." This man was Third Uncle's relative on the maternal side, equivalent to a distant cousin of mine. Since they both lived in Changsha, they had some contact, but not much.

In those days, when it came to socializing, Third Uncle and his generation were okay, but the older generation only visited during holidays and festivals, valuing a relationship as light as water. Such a relative suddenly coming to find him made Third Uncle a bit surprised.

Still, since a relative had come, he couldn't neglect him, nor could he immediately ask what he wanted. Third Uncle put down his work, exchanged pleasantries, and took him to a restaurant for a meal. When they were halfway through their drinks, he finally asked why he had come.

The Xie family was also a large household, with six brothers—even more than Grandpa's family. Generally, they wouldn't be short of money. If someone came to see Third Uncle, it must be for help, and the matter might be quite special; otherwise, they could handle it themselves.

Xie Lianhuan hesitated for a long time before finally telling Third Uncle that it wasn't really a big deal—he just wanted to use Third Uncle's connections to get a spot on Wenjin's investigation team. He wanted to go out to sea and take a look.

As soon as Third Uncle heard this, he felt something was off. Wenjin was charming and lovable, and everyone liked her. The Xie family, being relatives, had met her a few times, but Wenjin kept her boundaries very clear—they'd met, but had no deep interactions, and usually there was no contact. How could Xie Lianhuan suddenly come up with such an unreasonable request? There had to be an ulterior motive. He immediately shook his head and asked, "What do you mean, 'go out to sea and take a look'? What do you want to see? Can't you go to Hangzhou for that?"

Xie Lianhuan scratched his head awkwardly and said he couldn't say. If Third Uncle had to know, then consider it as him having some business over there. He was also acting on someone else's behalf.

Third Uncle asked him why he didn't find his own way—hiring a fishing boat wasn't that expensive. He explained that China was currently engaged in a military confrontation with Vietnam, and Xisha was a very sensitive area. Without permission from the coastal defense, ordinary ships couldn't enter. That's why he asked Third Uncle to help him blend into the investigation team, which would make things easier. He said it wouldn't affect Wenjin at all.

The more Third Uncle heard, the stranger it seemed. Combining grave robbers with Xisha—no matter how he thought about it, it felt awkward. If he said there was business, what kind of business could there be in Xisha? Honestly, there was only water and sand there, and at most some shipwrecks. If he was after shipwrecks, why go to Xisha? Ningbo and the Bohai Sea had plenty. Besides, the Xie family had some standing in those days—they were an old family of several hundred years. It wasn't likely they'd suddenly fallen to the point of scavenging underwater goods.

Seeing Third Uncle's expression of difficulty, Xie Lianhuan said, "If it's not possible, forget it. I'll think of another way."

If it had been me, his saying that would have made me breathe a sigh of relief and I'd have taken the chance to refuse. But Third Uncle didn't think that way. He heard it and thought, something's off—there's something fishy here. If I refuse, this guy will really go find another way. None of the people in this business are saints; they might do something extreme that would be hard to guard against. Since it already involved Wenjin, he couldn't let him run wild. He had to find out what he was up to.

So Third Uncle said it wasn't that it couldn't be done, but that his hesitation was because this wasn't something he could decide alone—he had to ask Wenjin first. He couldn't make the final call. He asked Xie Lianhuan if he could wait for a while.

Xie Lianhuan quickly thanked him and even took out a bunch of scarce foreign goods from that time, asking Third Uncle to give them to Wenjin.

Both harboring their own suspicions, they chatted a bit more about other things, and then Xie Lianhuan left. Third Uncle immediately went to find some local thugs he knew, gave them some money, and told them to follow him and find out what he'd been up to lately.

In those days, thugs were the ones with the best information. Before long, word came back: they'd followed Xie Lianhuan for several days and found that he was just a rich playboy. He had no particular hobbies, only liked listening to Huagu opera, and his friends were a mixed bunch from all walks of life—very ordinary. The only strange thing was that recently, for some reason, he had been in close contact with a foreigner, often meeting at a teahouse every few days. Their talks were brief, only about ten minutes, and then he'd leave.

Third Uncle found it odd. In their line of work, doing business with foreigners was common, but Xie Lianhuan was different—he'd basically stopped participating in the family business. His job at home was to spend money. Why would he suddenly start dealing with a foreigner? Third Uncle felt there was something to it and decided to check it out himself.

He found out the general pattern of when Xie Lianhuan met the foreigner, picked a time, put on an inconspicuous outfit, and squatted outside Xie Lianhuan's door early in the morning waiting for him to come out. After waiting for an hour, Xie Lianhuan came out. Third Uncle followed him at a distance, trailing him for half of Changsha City until they reached Old Rice Market. Sure enough, a teahouse appeared ahead. Xie Lianhuan looked around cautiously, didn't spot Third Uncle, and lifted the curtain to go inside.

Overjoyed, Third Uncle rushed over in three quick strides and peered through the window. He saw Xie Lianhuan sit down at a seat, and across from him sat a foreigner.

The foreigner had white hair and a burly frame—hard to tell his nationality, but his complexion was excellent. Sitting in the teahouse, he looked like a bear. He was sipping tea in a practiced manner, wearing slippers. From his relaxed demeanor, it was obvious he'd been in China a long time and was used to Changsha's everyday life.

Third Uncle took a good look at the foreigner and found him somewhat familiar, as if he'd seen him somewhere before. He couldn't help but feel puzzled.

The foreigners he'd done business with could be counted on one hand, and this guy definitely wasn't one of them. He wasn't a client. But in those days, seeing a foreigner in Changsha was extremely rare, so it couldn't be from everyday encounters. Then who was he?

He tried hard to recall, thinking back over all the occasions he'd seen a foreigner in the past few years. Suddenly, he jolted—he remembered: this foreigner was one of the group of foreigners he'd seen at Biaoziling a year ago! The experience from a year ago was too shocking; Third Uncle's memory was fresh. Once the thread was pulled, everything came back to him.

A chill ran through Third Uncle. He looked at the two people in the teahouse and suddenly felt he had grasped something, yet couldn't quite catch it. A sense of foreboding welled up in his heart.

At this point, I raised my hand to interrupt Third Uncle, asking him to pause. I needed to think before continuing to listen.

From Third Uncle's narrative so far, things were clear. Without a doubt, Xie Lianhuan wanted to go to Xisha to do a favor for this mysterious foreigner, and it was something quite special. Because business with foreigners was common enough—there was no need to be so secretive.

And this foreigner was one of the group that had tried to dig up the Blood Corpse Tomb at Biaoziling a year ago. Back then, Third Uncle found it strange, because Biaoziling was deep in China's inland mountains—not a place where foreigners should appear. Now this same group was obviously trying to send someone to China's Xisha waters, again a place where foreigners shouldn't be, because there was a war going on. At that time, Third Uncle didn't yet know there was an ancient tomb beneath Xisha, so he was just puzzled, unable to deduce anything. But now that I knew what happened later, based on these clues, the matter the foreigner asked Xie Lianhuan to handle must have been related to that Ming Dynasty underwater tomb.

That would mean the first person to know about the existence of the underwater tomb was possibly that foreigner, and then he told Xie Lianhuan.

That created an inexplicable paradox, an unthinkable problem: how did this foreigner know about the existence of the Biaoziling ancient tomb and the Xisha underwater tomb? Both types of tombs were extremely rare—even someone like my grandfather had only heard a little about them. How could a foreigner be so well-informed? I also thought of the snake-browed bronze fish Xie Lianhuan was holding when he died—that was the first such fish to appear in the world. Obviously, he must have brought it out from the underwater tomb. Could it be that this mysterious foreigner wanted Xie Lianhuan to retrieve that bronze fish from the tomb?

In other words, not only did the foreigner know ahead of time that there was an ancient tomb under the sea, he even knew what was inside it? That fit the American principle of intelligence supremacy all too well.

But why? Damn it, why? How the hell did they know?

Even when Third Uncle went to Biaoziling, which was recorded in Grandpa's notes, he had to rely on asking local mountain folk and went through a lot of hardship to find it. As for the underwater tomb off Xisha, forget it—I thought that except for Wang Zanghai, no one would even know it existed.

At this thought, I suddenly shuddered. I thought, no way—they say when there's no answer, the most unlikely answer is the correct one.

Since these things didn't exist, then the only answer was: could what Third Uncle just said still be nonsense? He had a track record of this. I immediately grew suspicious and looked at him, checking if his expression was off.

Seeing my shifting expression, Third Uncle couldn't tell what I was thinking. When he noticed me looking at him, he asked me what was wrong. I tested him: "Third Uncle, you can't lie to me again. After all you've said, if you lie to me again, that's really not cool."

Third Uncle looked at my expression and found it strange, asking why I thought that way. After I told him my concerns, he suddenly frowned and also looked at me.

I thought, that's it—his reaction seemed to show I had seen through him, and he didn't know what to say. My heart sank.

Unexpectedly, he glanced at me a few times and then suddenly said, "You're thinking too absolutely. It's not like that. Actually, those foreigners didn't know at the time what exactly was under the Xisha seabed. They only knew that there must be something underneath that place."

I asked, "How do you know that?"

Third Uncle said, "They told me themselves later. Actually, those foreigners are the bosses of the company A Ning works for now. And do you know who the founder of this company is?"

I shook my head. Third Uncle said, "It's the American who swindled the Warring States silk manuscript from your grandfather."

I almost dropped my jaw and said, "Him?"

Third Uncle nodded and said, "Just before this trip to Xisha, I saw him once in person. He was already on his last legs, kept alive by machines. At that time, he personally told me the purpose behind his decades of investing in activities in China."

"And what was that?" I asked.

Third Uncle said, "The whole thing started with that Warring States silk manuscript he swindled back then. At the time, he was still a middle school teacher at a church, occasionally dealing in stolen antiques. That year, under the guise of charity, he got the original Warring States silk manuscript from your grandfather. By then, this man was already very well-versed in Chinese culture. To increase the manuscript's value, he decided to decipher the information on it." Third Uncle paused. "But what he deciphered after two years of work gave him a huge shock."

My heart stirred, and I said, "That American was actually able to decipher the Warring States manuscript that we couldn't crack for so many years?"

Third Uncle nodded. "It's precisely because he was an American that he deciphered it. The arrangement of the cipher text on that manuscript was based on a mathematical principle. People like us, no matter how skilled, could never crack it from a mathematical perspective."

"So what did the manuscript say?" I asked curiously.

Third Uncle said, "The information recorded on that manuscript—you would never guess what it—"

Just as Third Uncle was halfway through, suddenly someone knocked at the door. I wondered to myself, could someone else have come for medical treatment? Everyone who could come had already come. Who the hell was interrupting my story time? I turned to look, and it turned out to be a courier.

He walked in and asked, "Is Mr. Wu Xie here?"

I nodded. "That's me."

He took out a large package from his bag and said, "Your delivery."

Third Uncle also found it strange that a delivery would suddenly arrive, and asked me who sent it.

I turned the envelope over and looked. On it was written: Zhang Qiling. My heart suddenly raced. Why would he send me a delivery? I checked the date—it was from not long ago. Could he have come out from the fissure underground? I quickly tore it open. Inside the envelope were two black objects—two videotapes.